An ideal Bose gas is a quantum-mechanical phase of matter, analogous to a classical ideal gas. It is composed of bosons, which have an integer value of spin and abide by Bose–Einstein statistics. The statistical mechanics of bosons were developed by Satyendra Nath Bose for a photon gas and extended to massive particles by Albert Einstein, who realized that an ideal gas of bosons would form a condensate at a low enough temperature, unlike a classical ideal gas. This condensate is known as a Bose–Einstein condensate.
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Bose gas in the context of Gas
Gas is a state of matter with neither fixed volume nor fixed shape. It is a compressible form of fluid, in contrast to a liquid. A pure gas consists of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), or molecules (e.g. oxygen (O2) or carbon dioxide). Pure gases can also be mixed together such as in the air. What distinguishes gases from liquids and solids is the vast separation of the individual gas particles. This separation can make some gases invisible to the human observer.
The gaseous state of matter occurs between the liquid and plasma states, the latter of which provides the upper-temperature boundary for gases. Bounding the lower end of the temperature scale lie degenerative quantum gases which are gaining increasing attention.High-density atomic gases super-cooled to very low temperatures are classified by their statistical behavior as either Bose gases or Fermi gases. For a comprehensive listing of these exotic states of matter, see list of states of matter.
Bose gas in the context of Photon gas
In physics, a photon gas is a gas-like collection of photons, which has many of the same properties of a conventional gas like hydrogen or neon – including pressure, temperature, and entropy. The most common example of a photon gas in equilibrium is the black-body radiation.
Photons are part of a family of particles known as bosons, particles that follow Bose–Einstein statistics and with integer spin. A gas of bosons with only one type of particle is uniquely described by three state functions such as the temperature, volume, and the number of particles. However, for a black body, the energy distribution is established by the interaction of the photons with matter, usually the walls of the container, and the number of photons is not conserved. As a result, the chemical potential of the black-body photon gas is zero at thermodynamic equilibrium. The number of state variables needed to describe a black-body state is thus reduced from three to two (e.g. temperature and volume).